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Duke Nukem Wiki talk:Project Walkthrough
Ideal Format This is how I would like all walkthroughs to be done. It would have a video and text version of the guide with pictures to go with the guide. I would like the guides to obviously mention the difficulty they are being done on and contain all secrets and enemies eliminated. I know this is a big goal but I'm trying to make this as comprehensive as possible. ~ Nacho 22:34, August 24, 2010 (UTC) : Forgive me, but I'm not quite so sure that's the best style. For me, the text walkthrough should take precedent over everything else, with a video walkthrough being optional and then only mentioned at the bottom as a kind of "extra". Having plenty of images is great, of course, as is having a level map (particularly of a simple style with easily-spotted key features such as locked doors/key cards, secrets, cracked walls, etc.). : Firstly, a brief mention that I think walkthroughs should have a separate page, rather than being incorporated into the main level page as this one currently is. I'm sure in this instance it's just a temporary oversight, though, not a "plan", so I'm not complaining about it. : Each part of the walkthrough should be placed under a subheading (e.g. "Leaving the roof", "The streets", etc. for Hollywood Holocaust). Each section, obviously, describes what happens in each part of the level, including everything you can find therein (enemies, pick-ups, secrets - Easter eggs don't need a mention here). The numbers and types of enemies should be noted for every difficulty level, either through some complicated form of phrasing, hover text, or even a small table per section. The point is that the walkthrough should be for all difficulty settings, not just one of them. Perhaps using a Hard verson as a base, with hover text to modify the "there are three Pig Cops around the corner" phrases would work best, at least as a compromise. Not to mention that important points like references to items/enemies should stand out somehow (highlights?). : I also think that, where possible, the screenshots should NOT show the weapon/HUD (mainly applies to DN3D and its expansion packs). It just looks cleaner like that. : Incidentally, ages ago I made a preliminary "Project Walkthrough" page where exactly this kind of thing can be discussed. It'd be nice if it were actually used. The page's contents are just something I threw together for the sake of having content. I would suggest an additional part of the project page that lists "model pages", i.e. page X is perfect, so try to get the other pages to look like it. If you want to continue this discussion there, feel free to copy over the contents of this talk page to that one's and carry on. :D : ~ Maruno 23:35, August 25, 2010 (UTC) :: I see that we agree on a lot of things and I appreciate you speaking up about it. I've been trying to get the community to give me pointers on what they'd like but I don't get much more then if it looks good or bad. So let me address some of your thoughts most of which I completely agree on. :: First off I do agree that the walkthroughs should be found on a separate page indeed. This is just a case of as you said a temporary oversight, I was just trying to get all the information I've got in one place just to get the attention of people so I could get their opinions on if things worked or didn't... which I'm glad they did. I also tend to agree that the text walkthrough should take the forefront in the walkthrough and trust me I still plan on doing so I was just trying to make what I got pleasing to the eye as I gather more and more of what I want. The video walkthrough isn't something I'm going to outright demand of what all walkthroughs should have but I did want it in as something I hope people strive to add in the future for all levels and as such wanted to include my view on what someone should look for when working on one(Secrets, enemies, etc.). Basically I'm trying to make this page a type of wishlist if you will of all the things we would want to have in a level article which is once again why I'm glad you spoke up. :: Now I do agree that screenshots of the level are always nice which is why I tried to include one of every room you'd travel through in that level for this walkthrough. This is just in case if for some reason you couldn't understand my description of the level while I'm guiding you through it that you have a visual reference to it as well... we want to make this think extremely detailed but at the same time idiot proof after all. Which brings me to another thing on this topic... for the images of each area I did bold certain text which can be found in each image caption so you can - hopefully - easily find the image for that paragraph though this method of trying to relate the two is just something I'm experimenting with though I do like the concept. :: Also on the topic of images I do agree with having no hud in the image if possible and it is something I did plan on doing... unfortunately I'm stuck with the limitations of this particular game as you can see by this image here: :: Nasty little graphical areas isn't it... which is a shame since I do agree that they look better without the hud... :: Subheadings for parts of the level are a good idea and something that didn't pop in my head yet and is something I'll definitely throw in. On the topic of the walkthrough being about all difficulties I tend to agree though the way of executing this is something I think we should think about a little more... I can easily redo the text walkthrough to represent what you'd do on all difficulties but once we get into things like difficulty specific enemies or items (armor that only shows up in hard for instance) is when this starts to hit a snag. I do think these things are very important to have mentioned somewhere but I'm not sure how to go about doing so within the walkthrough itself... the hover text is OKAY but to make it idiot proof we'd have to explain how the hover text is used within the guide as this practice is not something commonly used in other wiki's especially for this reason. Another issue we could have with this is that some explanations could be quite large to put in hover text as the ideal method of dealing with a group of enemies could be drastically different. This method could still work but I'm thinking their could be other ways of handling it that we should investigate. I'm trying to avoid just listing things within the walkthrough itself for Example: :: When you walk into the room you will find two Pig Cops standing in front of you if you're playing on hard, One Pig Cop and one Assault Trooper on medium, and only one Assault Trooper on easy. :: In the end this will become rather repetitive and make it feel cluttered since you'll be doing it for every room. One thing I'm trying to do in this wiki is to have the wiki look rather appealing, visually, more like a magazine in how it utilizes space which is why I tried setting up the text walkthrough the way I did with the images. To point out the Hollywood Holocaust one as an example as to something I feel is to empty in the way of white space and emptiness... It should be streamlined and such. But anyway... back to the listing of the enemies for all difficulties... :: As I said there may be a way to do it still in the walkthrough itself I just think we should explore different options. I do plan on having a chart that lists the number count for everything you can find in the level such as enemies, items, etc. and have collected the data of the enemy counts I just haven't had time to do the item counts yet. Which makes me wonder... if we have this + a map of the level do we even need to include a list in the text walkthrough itself? As I said if I can figure out a way to do it while still keeping a clean look I'm all for it. :: Last but not least feel free to mention anything else that should be included, such as Par times and things like that. :: ~ Nacho 03:54, August 26, 2010 (UTC) ::: Making a "wish list of everything a level page should have" (perhaps more accurately, a walkthrough page?) is exactly what I was talking about with model pages. They'd be examples of what a page needs to be like, which along with the guidelines on this project page can help people make perfect pages. I figure we need at least one model page per game (i.e. to account for any differences between platforms/game styles), with additional ones to demonstrate different features (e.g. a "basic" model page plus a "this is how you show X" model - can't think of an example off the top of my head, actually). As long as all the possibilities are covered, any other page can copy off them. ::: Plenty of screenshots is always a good thing, providing they're useful. We don't really need panoramic shots of every single part of a level, just the key areas (e.g. no photographing short air vents - the proviso here is that air vent entrances should be seen somewhere in another screenshot, with context, so that we at least know where to look for it). ::: And speaking of which, there's marking screenshots (e.g. to show a route or the location of a hidden entrance). Before we get half a dozen people scribbling on their screenshots in Paint, we should probably get at least a loose visual style in place. Thick primary-coloured lines and arrows, deliberately hand-drawn (i.e. slightly shaky lines) so that they stand out, is probably the most natural. Keep it minimal, too - aside from obscuring the picture too much, any extra information that could be put in text as a caption below should be done so. Don't try to show too much at once. The captions for this kind of screenshot should always describe what's going on. ::: I'm not sure which way you want to take the "visual walkthrough versus text walkthrough" thing, and I'm not sure which way is best. Too many is overkill (not to mention slower to view), but screenshots can be more intuitive. Here, though, I'd say keep the onus on the text, with screenshots as flavouring rather than vital parts of the telling (of course, unless we need to). ::: There's also the concern that with a lot of screenshots lining the sides, they'll continue far down the page, way past the part of the walkthrough they were meant to illustrate (and thus become pointless). I'm not sure how we could overcome this - solutions such as having a small gallery for each section, or making mosaic screenshots to condense them into fewer images, don't seem that appealing. There may be a way to prevent the next section's text from appearing until all the previous section's screenshots have been displayed, but that may result in large gaps in the text. ::: Catering for all difficulties is surely going to be difficult, short of having three separate walkthroughs. Even with hover text, it's only going to be difficult to read if you want any other difficulty. The best I can think of is to put the entire walkthrough in a template, with switch coding to change parts of the text depending on a variable used to call that template, and just include a call to that template in the walkthrough page, and then --somehow-- allow changing between each version. This is also very complicated indeed. Until we can figure out something that works, though, let's just keep to the hardest difficulty version (perhaps with some hover text thrown in, as a memo for future reference if nothing else). At least we can stick a sentence at the top of the page explaining how the hover text works and what it's doing here. ::: Visual appeal means nice templates. You've probably noticed my attempts to upgrade the main ones we've had for a while (which I also made, incidentally). Do please make comments, either in my talk page or in the Project Navigation's talk page. Do you like the lozenge style (as I've called it), and is everything correct and present? Not to mention the main page needs a facelift, but that's not for discussion here. Walkthrough pages don't currently have any templates of their own, but one or two can be thrown together. An obvious one would be a continuity bar/panel, perhaps similar to what's in the new level template or perhaps something different. ::: I've made a table template ages ago for showing the contents of a level. The style obviously needs working on, but it's a start. I think, however, that it belongs on the main level page, rather than the walkthrough subpage (as do the par times). The walkthrough subpage should only contain anything that's relevant to a walkthrough, or otherwise actually playing the game, i.e. a guide to completing the level, and pointing out secrets and hidden areas. Information on the level itself (vertex count, sprites, par times, Easter eggs, etc.) would be better off on the main level page. There's a bit of a fuzzy line, particularly when (say) discussing how to play the level in multiplayer, and that's something we'll have to figure out. ::: I'm not sure how the level contents template plus a map would make redundant telling how they're distributed throughout the level. The map itself should only show areas, locked doors and key card locations (coloured), breakable walls, secret areas. It should NOT show enemies/items - that would just make it too "busy". Remember that most maps are quite complicated in design, with sectors overlapping and all that (particularly Spin Cycle/Lunatic Fringe), and what with triggered spawning and all that I think it's quite impossible to make a single picture contain all that information and still be legible. The map should probably also be shown on the main level page too (but not as the main picture), but still included in the walkthrough page because it'd be useful. ::: When I'm stuck on something here, I take a look at how the Doom wiki handles it for inspiration. For one, I really like their level maps - yours is good too, of course - it's simply a matter of finding a good style/colour scheme (and someone to draw them :D ). ::: It might also help to start separating this wall of text out into subheadings dealing with individual aspects. I'd have a go at that, but it's way past my bedtime. ::: ~ Maruno 23:57, August 26, 2010 (UTC) :::: Okay... so I checked out the Doom Wiki and I do like those maps... I'll redo mine in the same vein as you do bring up a valid point that adding the enemies would make it too busy in more complicated maps. I'm making this entry short since I'm rather busy but I'll try and conform this new page to the standards we're striving for... I'll update this area more with my other thoughts on some stuff you mentioned and I'll stop by your templates and give my opinion on those. :::: ~ Nacho 00:43, September 1, 2010 (UTC) Continuity Bar I was thinking that it should simply link to the next and previous level walkthrough in the game... Maybe with the word: Walkthrough in the center which would link to a Walkthrough disambiguation page. I don't think we should list all of the levels in it as this would clutter it up... I was playing with the idea of a navbox at the bottom of the page listing all of the level walkthroughs for that game... there may be a better way but I think it should be something along those lines. ~ Nacho 20:06, September 5, 2010 (UTC)